A hot topic of conversation Thursday during Tom O'Brien's teleconference was the quarterback situation. O'Brien continues to stick by his prior statements that redshirt junior Mike Glennon will be his quarterback, and he explained why Thursday.

Here is a transcript from O'Brien's teleconference.

Opening statement

"We were very fortunate to get at least half the spring game in before the storm came. We got into the third period and evacuated a couple of hours before it really got dangerous here. We feel that we accomplished a lot of the goals that we set out to in the spring and look forward to go in the fall."

What was the progress of [Mike] Glennon this spring?

"He made very good progress. This is the third spring that he's been the quarterback, No. 1 guy in the spring. I think he's ready to take control of this offense. He's as talented as any quarterback that I've had. All those guys at BC he's got as much or more talent as all of them. He just needs the opportunity to play this fall and he will get that opportunity, and this team will look forward to his leadership as we go forward into the 2011 season."

Are you counting Mike as your quarterback? Have you heard anything definitive from Russell at this point?

"We're not waiting on any decision on Russell. He's with the Colorado Rockies. We've made our decision. We're going forward with Michael Glennon as our quarterback. We look forward to what Mike can do. As I just said he's as talented as any quarterback I had in my tenure there at Boston College. It's just a matter of him to play.

"This team has move forward. We're not going to wait for the Colorado Rockies to make a decision one way or another."

What do you like about Glennon? What are his best assets?

"He has a tremendous arm. He can make every throw that has to be made on the football field. He has good leadership. He has great understanding of the game. He's a very mature individual."

You lose a couple of kickers, can you fill me in on how replacements are coming there?

"We haven't had any this spring because they're all high school kids. Certainly we got to wait until August to get to them. We have a couple of young guys that have walked on that have done some things for us in the spring that certainly would be able to handle some duties, but we signed who we think are very talented young guys that will handle the kicking chores once we get started here in September."

How nervous are you with true freshmen handling the kicking?

"Not the best situation that you want to be in and certainly there are some concerns about it, but it's the situation that we're in, and we'll make the best of it."

Of all the goals you had for the spring, was there one that had to be hit more than others?

"Our goal has always been to get better as individuals. As we broke down the spring here for the last couple of days, I think it was a positive for many, many players on our football team. The moves that we made, Audie Cole to middle linebacker, looks like that is going to be a good move for us.

"D.J. Green looks like he's going to be able to handle moving from safety to be the field linebacker spot. I think those were the major moves one way or another as far as positional changes. Other than that a lot of those young kids that has gotten their brains beaten in the last couple of years are starting to mature and are becoming much better and much more confident in the position they're in right now."

How much was it important for you to go ahead and say even though I have a quarterback that can break all these ACC passing records, I am going to sit him on the bench and I'm okay with that?

"I'm not sitting him on the bench. He made a choice to go play baseball. That was his choice. He's choosing a baseball career. I don't know if he is going to sit on a bench. I have no idea what the outlook is and so we're moving forward. That was the decision we made a long time ago."

Didn't you though that if he came back that he would be the backup?

"That's where he is going to be."

Isn't that the same thing as sitting him down?

"You can call it what you want to do, but that's where he's going to end up. That was the decision that was made then. We can't be beholden to outside interest to who is going to run our football program."

You made such an improvement on defense last season, with top eight tacklers back should you be even better in 2011?

"We certainly have that chance because of the experience factor. Two years ago we played all those guys as freshmen. They've learned a lot and improved tremendously as you said last year and they should be poised to take another jump this year. That's what we hope would happen, and that's what we're coaching them to be a much better defensive football team this coming year than we were a year ago, and experience will allow that to happen we hope."